


Sleeping Bag

by Polly_Lynn



Series: The Camo-Verse [3]
Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-10 12:13:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2024745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She thought it would be fun. And they could use "fun" right now. Something to lift the pall of this so-careful, so-uneasy detente they've fallen into since . . . since everything they're not talking about."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I wrote this last year. It's AU from Watershed onward, set between Seasons 5 and 6. Three chapters, eventually M rated, though on the tamer side of that. It's also kind of in the Camo-verse with "Sharp-Dressed Man," "Legs," and "She's Just Killing Me," but it's not as light-hearted as those. Can I sell a story or what?
> 
> * * *

This was a bad idea. Worse, it was _her_ bad idea, and he didn't say a word. Nothing beyond _Sure. Yes. Ok._

She hears that a lot from him lately. Those words and nothing more. In this case—especially in this case—that really should have been a clue. Castle, agreeable, but subdued about a comic convention? About any nerd-based occasion? Yeah, that should have been a clue that this was a bad idea.

But she wanted this for them. She thought it would be fun. And they could use "fun" right now. Something to lift the pall of this so-careful, so-uneasy detente they've fallen into since . . . since everything they're not talking about.

Since they'd mutually declared a moratorium in talking about any of it. They're careful and polite with each other. He confines himself to _Sure. Yes. Ok._ No matter what she asks. Not that she asks much. Not that she says much at all.

But she thought this would be fun.

It _should_ be fun. The con itself is low key. Nothing like any of the big ones, but a few things they each like. A few they both like and no pressure, right? No pressure other than the seventy-two hours she's braved hell and high water to carve out. The seventy-two hours he doesn't really have to spare. Not that she knew that. Not that he said anything, but she hears.

But it should be fun. This. They've burned those bridges and made the time and it's fucking _Delaware_ _._ Neutral ground, and that's the point. It's part of the point.

And part of the weight. Part of the reason this _isn't_ fun.

She gets that now. Sitting alone with even the most amped up con-goers winding down and settling in for the night. With the less die-hard fans steadily abandoning the line. With her ass quite possibly freezing to a square of unnervingly clean Delaware sidewalk, she gets it. She feels like an idiot for not getting it sooner.

It isn't fun. It was never going to be fun.

She meant . . .

He hates DC. He never says anything. He says _Sure. Yes. Ok._ And he tries. They both _try._ But he hates it.

He doesn't sleep. He bumps into things like he can't get used to it. All her things rearranged into this cramped new space. Everything at odd angles and so much of it still in boxes. Like it's temporary. That sends the wrong message. A couple of wrong messages at least, but they're not talking about it. They're not talking about any of it.

He hates being a visitor. He hates the fact that she might be exploring—she might be mapping out this new territory for herself—but he's a tourist.

She tells herself it hasn't been that long. That he needs time. They both need time to settle into a routine. And it _hasn_ _'_ _t_ been that long, but it's not getting better either. It hasn't gotten any better at all.

Every time, he's a guest, and she'll never feel quite like that in New York. In his home. She'll never feel like a guest or a visitor or a tourist, and that's more than just geography.

_It's who you are. You don't let people in._

But they're not talking about that. They're not talking about what's fair or what _more_ might mean. What it should mean. What either of them wants it to mean, because they've agreed that it's a conversation they need to have, but this isn't the time.

So: Delaware. Half-way between and no home-field advantage.

It was supposed to be fun.

Delaware doesn't really solve anything, though. It doesn't solve the biggest thing.

He's not built for this. He's not built for life together three days at a time. Even with short flights and endless disposable income. Even with time on his hands and _Whatever you decide_ hanging between them.

Even with her gritting her teeth and taking her weekends. Her evenings. Even with her not giving in to the pull. Not letting the job take over her life, because she promised. He didn't ask—because they're not talking about it—but she promised anyway.

She promised him, whether he heard or not. Neither one of them was doing much listening in those days, and she had to go. There wasn't any time, and she had so much to do, and they'd agreed it wasn't a good idea to talk about this.

If any good came out of that _awful_ moment on the swings, it was that. The certainty that now was not the time to talk about it. About _them_ and _what now?_

It wasn't the time. It wasn't a good idea, but she promised him anyway. She dropped her bags on the curb at the last minute and went back to him. She coiled herself around him and he held her tightly. He stopped being so fucking _brave_ for two seconds and she promised him. And he didn't say _Sure. Yes. Ok._ He said her name and _I love you_ and she promised, even though all of it was against the rules.

She promised and she's _trying._

She tells herself that she doesn't give a shit about the looks when she packs up like clockwork at the end of the day. That all the snide comments in the world can't erase the fact that she's there when shit is going down. That she gets results and runs rings around most of her supposed teammates. That _they_ wanted _her,_ and she's not playing games with face time and boots on the ground for the sake of appearances. She promised him. She's trying.

But it doesn't solve anything. Trying. Not talking about it. Not now. All of that. Delaware. None of it solves anything.

He's not built for life like this.

He has a child's mournfulness about the thing he has right now and how soon it will be gone. How soon he'll have to let it go again.

It casts a shadow from the first minute she steps into his arms. From the first hot, hard kiss and fumbling press of his hands, her mouth. From the second they stagger into the first desperate place they can pretend is private enough, and it's not like New York.

It's not his frantic breath and her muffled curses. It's not the familiar shadows of the parking garage or the stairwell or any number of closets at the precinct. It's not that heady, urgent desire with an extra edge to it. It's not heat and the nervous frisson of more because they might get caught and they both get off on that a little bit.

It's so much less complicated than that now. It's so much less fun.

It's desperate and necessary. It's release. It's want pouring out of both of them and she thinks the prospect of it—of having him again, _finally_ —is the only thing keeping her upright most days. Promise and fulfillment before it gets to be too much.

It's good. It's sharp and brilliant and needful and _so_ good. She carries the ache with her all the days in between. She has to think about making her legs work and what marks need covering. What still has buttons and what been crumpled in a box since he tore it from her body. She has to think about all those logistics, and the desire builds and builds until the next time. Until they have to have each other now _._

It's good. It's vital and present, and right now, it's the only thing that feels like it really means anything. But it's not like New York. It's not like New York, because he's always thinking about goodbye.

He has a child's mournfulness, but she's the one who cries. Tears up, anyway, and it shocks him every time. It shocks him, and that's when he falters. When he quakes and they both come so close to breaking the rules. He whispers that he's sorry. That he doesn't want to go and he can't wait until the next weekend. He whispers and bites it back, because that's not allowed either.

She tears up, but she waits to really cry. He's already so unhappy that it only seems fair to wait, so she does. She tries to be fair. She makes it a ritual. She parks in the same place at the airport. Always underground and always behind the same concrete pillar. She gives herself five minutes to sob behind the wheel, and she can't believe it's not getting any easier.

It's not.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: "It's another thing they're not talking about, and that wasn't part of the agreement. Worse than that, she's only just noticed. It's gotten lost somehow. The fact that they never talk about him anymore. It's slipped through the cracks, because everyone else does. Everyone's eager to talk about him. To tell her he's ok. That he's doing just fine."
> 
> * * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: turns out to be AU after Watershed. Set between seasons 5 & 6\. Something I wrote a year ago.

The wind kicks up. The cold and a brief spatter of rain have a few more knots of people giving up on the line. A few more see those few and the idea catches on. There's an exodus to the tune of good-natured grumbling about July and what hemisphere this is anyway? People flow together and apart. They almost make eye contact. They connect in sideways smiles and parallel conversations. She remembers this from college. From her Nebula-9 days. The anarchy of wallflowers in bloom.

She keeps her head down, though. She peels herself off the brick at her back. She doesn't engage as she moves a few more squares of sidewalk forward. She wonders if he's watching. If he's close. She wants to look for him, but she's afraid it'll call attention just when the worst offenders are drifting away. This was such a bad idea.

She shuffles forward again as a sizable group peels off together in search of warmth and bigger things. They're muttering, and she thinks she catches his name. She watches them go and tries not to be obvious. She's eager, though. She thinks that's all of them. She turns the corner and lets her gaze sweep along the line. Reassures herself that everyone who might have been a problem is gone and that's good. It's good.

The line bunches up again here. It hugs a jog inward, a sheltered space outside the glass doors to the building. The brick cuts down on the wind and the alcove itself feels paradoxically less crowded. The small knot of people here are lower key. They survey the scene through the doors and seem to conclude that any major shifts are done for now. They spread blankets and settle down to a card game.

One guy regards her curiously. She has at least ten years on anyone in his group. She can tell he wants to ask what she's doing here. She's wondering herself when he gives her a tentative smile and offers a corner of blanket and a seat in the game. She shakes her head and thanks him. He gives a good-natured shrug and turns back to his friends.

It's pleasant here, relatively speaking, through she worries he won't be able to find her when he comes back.

If he comes back.

The though lingers for half a second. It's sour in her mouth and trickling down her throat to make her chest feel tight. It leaves her feeling foolish. Feeling mean.

He'll always come back. He'll always find her.

She sinks down the wall to sit again on a cold square of sidewalk.

_He'll come back._

It should be comforting. It should feel solid and sure and something she can hold on to while everything else shifts around her. That was the idea. The plan. Even though they're not talking about it, that's what it was supposed to mean: _Whatever you decide._

She wishes it were comforting, but right now it just adds to the weight. Even though she misses him. Even though she wants him back beside her right now. Even though she hates all the ways this is turning out to be a bad idea. She hates all the time they're losing to this—and it's so little already, really. Three days is hardly enough time to get used to one another all over again, and here they are wasting it because she didn't think it through.

But he didn't say anything, either. Even when they got here. When it was obvious it was going to to be a problem. He's famous. Kind of famous, and he can't just go to something like this. She should have realized, but he should have _said_ , and he didn't. He didn't say a thing until he was pushing her into a dark corner. Kissing her hard and apologizing.

_Sorry. Kate. Sorry. They won't . . . I know the type. They're not going to leave us alone. Sorry. I'll be back as soon as I can._

And then he was gone and here she is.

He should have said something, though. She's irritated. A sharp slice of it, clean through the guilt. For one second, she's irritated and can't believe he didn't say anything. The next, she can't believe she thought he would.

_Him._

It's another thing they're not talking about, and that wasn't part of the agreement. Worse than that, she's only just noticed.

It's gotten lost somehow. The fact that they never talk about him anymore. It's slipped through the cracks, because everyone else does. Everyone's eager to talk about him. To tell her he's ok. That he's doing just fine.

Ryan does. He texts her funny pictures and sends cheery emails every few days. Castle still stops by the precinct, but Gates won't let him do any work. Not really. He's not allowed on the other side of the tape or on canvases or take downs. He has to give the murder board wide berth. But shes been looking the other way when he drops by to visit now and then. She feels sorry for him. That's the subtext: Gates feels sorry him.

Kate answers the emails not so often. She sends a quick thank you now and then. Texts usually. She lets Ryan know she's glad she can count on him to keep her boys in line. To keep Espo in line. But she doesn't answer as often as she should.

It bothers her that Castle hasn't pushed. That she didn't even know about the new rules until Ryan told her. It bothers her that _Sure. Yes. Ok._ isn't just something he says to her. That he's given up on so much of their everyday life, and it's not fair.

She never wanted that. But it's not like he's saying she did. He's not blaming her. Any guilt she conjures up comes from all the things she can't stop to think about. Because she's exhausted trying to do this. Because she works harder than anyone and falls exhausted into bed at night. There's no day-to-day time to think about it, and when he's there—when she's in New York—the time is just too precious. And it's against the rules. They're not allowed to stop and think.

Lanie talks about him, too, but her news is second hand. That surprises Kate. News travels from Alexis to Lanie to her in the Wednesday night phone calls her friend won't compromise on. But there's not a lot to say, even though Lanie is eager to reassure her. Alexis is fine. She's busier than ever in her second year of college. She's doing well, though, and Castle's behaving himself. He's not hovering or clinging or compensating. He's learned his lesson about dropping by unannounced, and that surprises her, too.

She catches herself wondering who's taking care of him and hates herself for it. She hates that she hasn't wondered before. She hates that it's not her and it's apparently not him because he's slipping into the background of his own life. Their lives. She hates that everyone who tells her he's fine has no idea how he really is.

She misses him. She misses knowing every thought that flickers through his mind. She misses the disjointed dialogue that spills out when he's doing the dishes or reading the paper, because he's always writing. Except she doesn't know if he's writing at all these days. He's quiet. He might not be writing at all.

She misses his touch. The way his busy hands trip over her in passing. The way he unthinkingly sketches sentences on her skin while they're talking about something else entirely.

She misses him all the time. When his hands are on her. When she's closing her teeth around his skin. When he pushes inside and breaks her open. Hot, dirty curses and adjectives in her ear. When she climbs his body in yet another blind airport hallway because neither one of them can wait another second.

She misses him when he's going, and neither of them can live with that. When he drags her into, behind, or around the back of whatever's closest. When he flips the lock or shields her body with his own. When he covers her mouth with a rough palm and does indecent things to her in record time. When he comes hard and she feels the groan against her skin in every cell of her body. She misses him.

She misses the joy he's capable of. She had no idea how much she counted on it—counted on him to carry it for both of them—until he couldn't any more. Until he wasn't

He can't. Not in New York, not in DC, and apparently not in Delaware. He's not built for it.

She isn't either, she realizes. Lightning flash and all that, with her butt frozen to a Delaware sidewalk, it hits her just how unhappy she is. How much she hates this and can't live three days at a time. She can't live with a moratorium on anything real.

She pulls out her phone. Her hands are shaking. Need and worry and determination pushing at her skin and making her clumsy.

She taps out a text. _Where are you?_

_Cowering. Safe?_

He fires it back immediately, and there's a picture. Him with a baseball cap pulled low. He's shrinking back against the driver's seat of a car she doesn't know. Something huge he must have rented, and she can't believe they didn't even talk about how he got here. She sees the back crowded with things. The second row of seats folded down. A backpack and canvas bags in a neat row. A tight roll of camouflage print.

_Where?_

He sends back a single question mark. She curses under her breath and pushes to her feet. She's stumbling out of the line and trying to make her fingers work.

_Where? How do I find you?_

The kids look up from their game. "Should we save it? We don't mind." It's the guy who invited her earlier.

She shakes her head. "No. Thanks."

She looks down at her phone. A stack of messages. From him. Short. In rapid succession. Worry escalating.

_Safe? OMW back._

_Or bad? Sorry. Really sorry. OMW._

_You ok?_

And finally just her name and a question mark.

_No!_

She manages that. Kicks herself for sending it off alone. It looks curt. Cold and ambiguous and this is what passes for so much of their conversation lately.

_I'm fine. Good. Stay._

_Kate . . ._

There's anguish in that and she's on fire to be with him. She stops. Ignores the irritated tsks of people in costume. People loaded down with bags and boxes skirting around her.

She breathes deep. Steadies herself and takes the time with it.

_Miss you. OMW. How do I find you?_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There's something savage in it. Something not quite anger, but close kin to it. Something bright and hot and alive that drives the sorrow out, and she's so _relieved_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: In editing what _was_ the third and final chapter of this, I found myself unhappy with the wrap up. I am going to do a fourth chapter as an epilogue. I know that's annoying.
> 
> * * *

He's climbing out of the SUV just as she spots it, far from the three or four stands of light rising over the lines of cars. It's massive and black and not at all him. It reminds her of work. Of the stupid, hulking fleets she makes her way past on the endless march from her car through the garage to the office. She hates it.

She wonders about it, because it's so out of place here. More so with him climbing out of it. Somewhere in the back of her mind she's wondering, even as she launches herself at him. As her body carries his back against the door with an audible _thunk_.

"I told you to stay." Her mouth tears at his. Her fingers tug sharply at his hair. The collar of his coat. "I told you I'd find you."

His hands close around her arms. Hard enough to bruise if it weren't for the ridiculous weather and the layers between them. He holds her away from him. He ducks to get a better look at her face in the terrible shadows thrown by dirty lights over the gravel lot.

Their eyes meet, and he gives away more than he means to. She knows that in an instant. His eyes are wild. Grief-stricken and angry. _Lonely._ Something she went years without seeing at all—first because he wouldn't show anyone, and later because she wouldn't see. But it's there now. The real heart of a man who feels everything deeply and has learned long since how to hide it. It's something he hasn't let her catch even a flash of in weeks and weeks.

She goes limp. Her knees buckle and her body sags into his. Relief and surrender to whatever this is going to be. "Castle . . ."

"I missed you." He cuts her off. He pushes himself up from the car, turning her body and backing her against the second set of doors, and it's just as loud. If she had will to worry about anything else at all, she'd cringe at the racket they're making. "Wanted you right now."

_Wanted you right now._

It's redundant with his body pressed against hers like this. Unrelenting. There's something savage in it. Something not quite anger, but close kin to it. Something bright and hot and alive that drives the sorrow out, and she's so _relieved_.

 _This_ is like New York. _This_ is him and her and them. What they really are together, and how it makes them both more. She tears one arm free of his hold. He makes a noise low in his throat and jerks his hip into hers. He reaches blindly for her hand, but it's trapped behind her body, groping for the door handle. She finds it and tugs. She hurls herself against him, pulling the door open along with her.

He brings her body into his own. A sharp, jerking motion, and her teeth land on the tender skin just above his collar bone. She tastes blood and stumbles back. He blinks into the dome light like it baffles him, but it's half a second. Not even a moment before he hauls at the backs of her thighs and lifts her on to flat expanse of the folded-down seats.

"Inside," he snaps, shoving at her hips so she has no choice but to scrabble backward. "Kate. Inside. Now."

It's imperious. These clipped, commanding syllables that usually go with a very different kind of certainty. One that comes with rules and safe words and the glimpse of the dazzling _Isn't this fun?_ grin he gives her when the bedroom door closes on a particular kind of night.

She's angry. For a moment, she thinks she's furious—blind with it, but his thumbs are trailing down her cheeks. The come away with salt when her lips chase, and he's kissing her hard. Making her taste it and saying something over and over.

"Don't," he says, when she understands at last, and it's a tight, ferocious whisper. "Don't you _dare_ cry, Beckett."

He pulls the door closed behind him and the dome light fades. The inside of the car is at once cavernous and claustrophobic. He stoops. Rounds his shoulders so his head just brushes the roof, and his hands are at her hips again, shoving her off to the side. Out of the way as he grabs at the neat line of bags and thrusts them forward into the passenger seat.

He yanks at something she's half sitting on. The tight camouflage roll she caught just a flash of in the picture. It calls up other moments. Fierce, ridiculous desperation when she _had_ to have him in the middle of nowhere. When she drove him wild in retaliation, and he had to have her.

He's working on the roll. The sleeping bag. He's clicking open buckles and pulling at zippers to spread it wide over the rough fabric backing the seats. He's efficient and paying her no mind at all until she lunges for him. Until she's tearing at his clothes.

She's trying to, but he's focused. He's _determined_ , and his attention shifts to her instantly with a sharp _No_. The next second, he has her flat on her ass and clawing at the low roof of the car as he drags off her jacket and rakes layer after layer up along her ribs and over her head until he reaches bare skin. Until his mouth latches on to her breast and he sucks hard and long. Until he bites down on the inside swell and marks her, and his fingers close just hard enough around the other that her back arches and her mouth opens without sound.

She's still, then. Shocked into it by the fire in him. By the energy uncoiling and throwing off sparks between them. By relief, because she's _missed_ him since before that awful moment on the swings. Since they got lost somehow when spring came.

She's still, but he's wary now. Desperate as he's ever been to have her and keep her here. Like this. He's pressing her against the far door with uncompromising hands.

"Wait," he says when he finally pulls away like he can hardly convince himself to do it. "Just . . ." He makes a frustrated gesture toward the half-unrolled sleeping bag. He kisses her again, groaning when it's softer than he meant it. When a sigh slips out of her and the sorrow is there, pressing in on them like clouds of breath hovering in the chill air.

"Wait," he says again, but it's helpless now. She can hardly see his eyes, but there's nothing good in the bright shimmer there.

The spark catches her, though. Whether it's stubbornness or desperation or just her native fight, it catches her. She takes up the fire.

"No."

She's shoving back at him now. She's on her knees and kicking out behind her at the roll of the sleeping bag and trying to look like she meant it when it unfurls perfectly.

She's rising up and skimming her jeans down her hips. She's snapping the laces of her boots because they're hopelessly knotted and she needs them off now. She's sprawling naked on her back, the sleeping bag spread beneath her. She's reaching for him, because she's missed him and she's not letting him go now. She's not letting them slide back into that terrible in-between.

"No," she says again. Lower this time. Something he has to lean in to hear, even as she pulls his body on top of hers and her mouth finds what bare skin it can. "Done waiting. I _want_ you, Castle."

He pushes back from her. He straightens his arms and looms above her. His eyes rake over her, head to toe, like every inch of her is new. It's hungry, the way he lowers his mouth to her skin and slides down her body. Shoulder to ribs to belly to hip and back up again. Rising to kiss her lips. It's clumsy. He's trying to shrug out of his own clothes at the same time and she can't make her hands do anything to help.

"I love you."

It takes her a moment to realize it's her saying it. Her voice, bare and plaintive in the too-wide space between them as he pushes to his knees and peels off the last of his layers. He goes still, his t-shirt still clutched in his fist, and for a terrible, drawn-out moment, he's silent.

She says it again, though. Smaller, but clear, as she reaches her hands up toward him. "I love you."

"I know." He takes her by the wrists. He presses a kiss to each palm and pulls her upright against him. He buries his face against her neck and winds around her, skin to skin. "I know that, Kate."

But there's a ragged thread of relief in the words. There's knowing and there's _knowing,_ and she doesn't understand how they could have gotten as lost as this. So far from who they are that she needs to say it like this and make him really hear it. She doesn't understand why it takes a cramped back seat and a sleeping bag in the middle of fucking Delaware to bring them back to true.

He breathes it into her skin. Relief and ease as he lays her back down again. As he stretches her arms high above her head and holds her hands there for an emphatic second and kisses her hard. She nods. Grins back when she feels him smile against her lips and then he's gone. Hands and lips and tongue and teeth traveling over her. Words drifting along her limbs and up the rise of her ribs, like a dam has burst and the last two months of things he's needed to say are spilling and spilling out of him.

She doesn't understand most of it. Not the words themselves, but she doesn't need to. There's anger here when his hands shove her thighs roughly apart. Worry as his cheek drags over her belly and his forehead comes to rest against the sharp line of her hip. The warmth of love and scorching heat of desire as he tastes her.

She's far enough gone that she almost hits the ceiling when his tongue touches her the first time. He's relentless, though. Focused and demanding with his shoulders pinning her thighs. She curses at him. Threatens him as she writhes and tugs weakly at his hair. She's hoarse with it, her mind fizzing like she's hardly there.

"Castle," she gasps. "Please."

He pulls away instantly. His head popping up so quickly that she can't help but laugh.

"Finally," he says. He leaves one final, hard nip high up on the inside of her thigh. Another mark. "The magic word."

He slides his body along hers and kisses her. They groan together as the taste of her mixes on their tongues and she's had enough.

"I _hate_ you." She brings her elbows in and pushes up. She flips him and rolls on top of his body.

"Know that, too," he says as he sweeps her hair back and gathers it in his fist. He gives her a hard smile as he pulls her mouth down to his and the taste of them is still there. "I know."

She spreads her thighs wide on either side of his hips. She rounds her back, just teasing until one arm comes around her waist. Until the heat of his broad palm is splayed low over her back and he's growling her name into her mouth. "Beckett."

He presses his hips up, holding her still and the next dozen words from them both are breathless curses as he slides into her and meets hard resistance. She's slick and ready, but unbelievably tight from his drawn-out attention.

She curls her fingers hard around his shoulders and presses her chest to his. She lets his hand drive her hips down, aching and slow. She shivers hard as their bodies finally meet. She feels him tense beneath her. She stills. She waits for him, pressing kisses that tickle where his neck flows into his shoulder. He laughs. Giggles, actually, but it pulls him back from the edge.

"I hate you, too," he gasps. He arches his hips up into her for emphasis.

"Good." She pushes back against him. Retaliation that makes his toes curl.

She plants her palms on either side of his chest. She straightens her arms and peels her skin slowly from his. She lifts her shoulders as high as she can with the low ceiling. She circles her hips and raises up, only to sink back over him completely. His fingers trail down her sides and over her breasts, light and heavy, lingering and moving on. He's slow with her. Seductive, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows he's up to something.

But it's too late by the time he makes good on it. The promise and threat of hands and words and patience. She's too given over to movement and sensation when he catches her wrists behind her back with one hand and the other creeps between her thighs and strokes her clit in light, maddening circles and all she can do is let go, crying out as he urges her on until he's spilling into her, his hands gripping her hips now and holding her to him.

He's worse off than she is, in the end. His eyes are wide and staring up at the low ceiling. He's shivering and gulping in breath, groaning in faint protest as she lifts herself off him. She urges one shoulder up, then the other. She stretches herself out along his side and reaches down. She finds the tab of the zipper right away and it's nothing short of a miracle. She drags it up and the sides of the bag come together around them.

He turns toward her. Hauls himself on to his side so they're pressed together, front to front. He shivers as the sweat cools on his body and hers. His eyes flicker open. He's trying hard to focus, but it's taking the last of his energy. He's slipping off to sleep as he kisses her.

"Don't go anywhere," he says faintly.

"I'm not." She kisses him and kisses him again because it's sweet. Because it doesn't taste like leaving for the first time in months. "I won't."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thanks for reading. I will try to have the epilogue up soon.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It all comes and goes in waves. Worry about the minutiae of right now. The crushing weight of everything this doesn't solve. Delaware and a sleeping bag. What feels like the first time she's touched anything in him in weeks."
> 
> * * *

He's watching her when she wakes. It's intermittently dark—a sickly light flickers somewhere outside. She's disoriented, but she knows instantly that he's watching. Like always, she feels the steadiness of gaze and the sharpness of his hunger to know her. The flutter in her own belly. Fear, sometimes. Even now, she's afraid sometimes of what he'll see. But eagerness, mostly. She wants him to know her. She wants to know and be known and it's easier in the dark.

She settles back into him. He knows she's awake, but he watches still. The slow, even rise and fall of his chest tells her it's been going on a while. She wonders if he's slept. If he's cold, too. Or too warm. If his knee aches and he can count every new bruise. Every broken expanse of skin.

It all comes and goes in waves. Worry about the minutiae of right now. The crushing weight of everything this doesn't solve. Delaware and a sleeping bag. What feels like the first time she's touched anything in him in weeks.

It all comes and goes, and she can't face it. She says the first thing that comes to mind.

"Why do you have this?"

They're spooned together. She lets her fingers creep up and out over the top of the bag. She reaches for his and drags them over the fabric, guiding with her own.

"A sleeping bag?" He murmurs it idly against her bare shoulder. It's careless. A little annoying on purpose. It's . . . normal.

She wriggles in his arms. She flops once to her back and again to her side. She faces him, smiling, and tries not to worry this won't last. That the spell will break and they'll fall all the way back to careful.

"A two-person sleeping bag," she says just before her mouth snaps shut. She might not want to know.

He laughs, though. "Camouflage. I know your weakness." He presses kisses across her cheek and whispers in her ear, "I have a sparkly lavender one with unicorns, if you prefer . . ." He cocks his head, thinking. "Or Pegasus? Unicorns with wings? Maybe My Little Pony?"

She draws her hand inside the bag and presses it to his ribs. "Castle . . ."

He yelps and tries to retreat from the ice cold of her fingers, but two-person or no, there's no escape.

"Ok, ok," he says quickly. She moves to pull back, but he catches her hands. One, then the other, he draws them against his skin and tucks them against the warmth of his sides like he's done a hundred times before. "They're what I had on hand to grab. Alexis just _had_ to have her own. That's the . . . unspecified mythical equine bag, but she was only ever brave until the fire died down."

"She'd crawl in with you." She grins. Tries to picture it, but she's weary and the image is funny. She can only picture the version of him she knows. Perfect hair. A crisp button-down and impeccably creased slacks, lying stock still on hard-packed dirt. "Did you camp a lot?"

"Not a lot." He turns her hands palm out and finds a new patch of warmth to press her fingers to. "And we haven't gone together in . . . " He thinks about it. Shrugs. "Not since the dark days of sparkly lavender. But I . . . I guess I hold on to things."

"Lucky for me," she says, unthinking.

"Lucky," he repeats and there's too much crowded into it. Apology. Wariness. Exhaustion. Frustration. Hope and stubbornness, too, though. She follows those. She _is_ lucky, but she can't keep counting on that. They can't keep counting on it.

"You knew this would go wrong." She feels him tense, but she worms her her hands under and around him. She knots them together behind his back. "Delaware. You knew and you didn't say anything."

"I didn't want it to go wrong." She can practically hear his mind whirring as he sifts through the words for the right thing. The careful thing. "But . . . yeah. The new graphic novel. . . So . . . plan B."

"It's July." The words come out flat. She feels flat. Stunned. "Castle. It's _July._ "

"Yeah. _Ow!"_ He squirms, and no wonder. Her fingers are digging hard into his back. "Of course it's July."

"It just came out!" Her voice is too loud. She's thrown. She's just putting it together. How stupid this is. How stupid _she_ is. "Castle. Your book _just_ came out."

"Yeah," he says, his tone neutral. Careful again. "Number five on the _Ledger_ _'_ _s_ list."

"Five," she repeats faintly. She pictures the pile inside her front door. Half a dozen unopened packages, at least. Her preorder must be in there somewhere. And he'd have sent one. Or brought one with him for the weekend. "Why didn't you _say_?" It's more accusing than she means it to be. She's more frustrated with herself than anything, but it comes out sharp.

"Say, what, Beckett? 'Hey, I know you've just made this major career move, but remember how I'm moderately famous?' " It's mild. He's going for self-deprecating, but it's worn around the edges. A little sharp, too, and she's so out of practice. They're so out of practice at this.

"I should've . . . I didn't forget. I just . . ."

"Didn't know it was July?" That's sharper still. He rolls to his back, away from her, and that stings. It all stings.

"I didn't put it together, ok?" She flops so they're shoulder to shoulder. "I missed you, and it's 'my turn'." She carves angry quotes in the air and lets her hands fall to cover her face. "I wanted it to be fun. And I couldn't stand another weekend with you hating DC."

"I don't hate DC." The words come swiftly. A completely neutral aside, like they're playing by Robert's Rules of Order, and it's a simple point of information.

She laughs. A short trill, because she forgot. They're so out of practice that she forgot this is what it's like to argue with him. That he can slip in and out of things. That he can be boiling over with fury and still stop entirely to pick up some point that interests him. She just forgot. That's all she means by it, but it takes him the wrong way. He thinks she's laughing at _him._ Dismissing him.

"I _don't._ "He rolls back toward her. He lifts himself one elbow and closes his fingers around his wrist. He looms over her. "I hate that you've run yourself into the ground. I hate that you look worse now than you did after you got shot. I hate that you've dug yourself in so deep that you don't even know it's July. . . "

"Castle. . ." She swallows hard. She raises her hand toward his face, but he bats it away.

"No, I'm not done." His jaw works. It's more than anger. It's the hurt underneath and only a glimpse of that. She presses down a sudden sick feeling and nods for him to go on. "I hate that there's . . . that I have a ring in my pocket that would fall right off your finger now." He dips his head to sweep a kiss over her knuckles. Even though he's angry. _Because_ he's angry, and she sees suddenly how frail her fingers look against his. How thin and she thinks about her clothes hanging off her. How she's always cold. It's . . . sobering. "And I hate . . . " His breath hitches like he's winding down. "I hate your _shitty_ little apartment." He collapses on to his back again. "But I don't hate DC."

She stares up at the roof of the car. Lets her eyes focus and refocus on the patterns their fingers and elbows and buttons and zippers dragged into the fabric. She tries to let it all sink in. The longest stretch of anything real he's said to her in weeks. _Months_ , she reminds herself. It's July.

"So you don't hate DC," she says, the words sailing up and out unbidden. Dry and bland, but not exactly careful. "My mistake."

He laughs, thank God. Harder than it deserves, by far, and a little of the tension washes away on the sound.

"You hate my apartment, though." She's not really sure why she says it. Why she picks that out of all things. It's a way back in, she supposes. One of the easier ways back in and she should probably be ashamed of that. She should probably be braver, but he takes it up.

"Don't _you_?" He cranes his head up and to the side to look at her. He's puzzled.

"It's . . . I really just sleep there. I _do_ sleep." She narrows her eyes at him. His mouth twists, but lets it go. "I didn't really have time to find anything else."

"I did."

"You . . . . what?" She shakes her head like she's clearing it. She can't have heard him right.

"I had time," he says like she's a little slow. "I could have helped."

"Castle, I couldn't . . ." she stammers. "How could I do that to you?"

"Do what?" He blinks hard up at the roof. "Let me in? Let me have some part in this huge change in your life?"

"This huge change that _hurt_ you." She tries to keep her voice steady. "How could I ask you . . ."

"You could _ask,_ " he cuts in. He jerks his head to look at her, and she wishes he'd go back to staring at the dome light or something. He's angry—the tight, controlled kind of angry that drops right into the pit of her stomach. "You could open your mouth and have the conversation. And maybe I say no or maybe I say yes or maybe I'm angry or glad or whatever. But you ask and I get a chance to answer. That's how grown-ups do things."

It dies away. The words and fury behind them, gone just like that. It's cold and silent in the car, and the sleeping bag feels big enough for four. For a hundred.

"So . . ." She clears her throat, but it's too thick with tears to really help. She's kind of smiling, anyway, because it's funny. Somewhere in the mess of her headspace, it's a little funny. "You're lecturing me on how grown-ups do things."

"Apparently." He snorts. A watery kind of chuckle that makes her want to ask what it's like for him. All these things colliding. "That's how bad it's gotten, Beckett."

He means that to be funny, too, and it is. A joke as weak as hers, that gets a laugh even as they reach for each other, frantic in the same moment to be close.

"It's bad, Castle," she whispers and he says it back.

"Yeah . . . it's bad." He presses her closer to him. "It's bad, Kate."

They lie together quietly for a while, tired out from even this small skirmish. Tired from everything that's come before. Between the swings and now, but there's rest in his arms around her and something about the unfamiliar space that pushes her onward.

"I've been alone since I was nineteen." She feels him shift. Curiosity rising. The words are strange to her, too. A non-sequitur, or so it seems at first. "And I think . . . it always seemed like a good thing that I didn't have anyone else to consider. My dad was . . . it got to a point when I had to just accept that his sobriety was his job. And I had mine. I knew what I needed to do. The academy and working my way up. Making detective. Getting into homicide."

"Sorenson," he says. Just the name, and she can feel how much even that costs him. Anger and hurt fizzing on his skin. Not the fact of him, but the fact he belongs in the conversation somehow.

"Yeah." She thinks about it. For the first time maybe. How that piece fits here. "When he took the Boston job, it . . . hurt. But it seemed normal. Josh, too. When things blew up about him going to Haiti, it was like being outside myself. I was upset and he was just . . . shocked, and I was, too. We'd just gone along all that time, and I had it in the back of my head that it was how things are supposed to go. That it was good that way."

"Good," he repeats it, his tone flat and mechanical. Like he knows it's his turn to say something and it's all he can muster up.

"No," she says. "Not good. Lonely."

She chokes on the word. She wants to tell him how long it took her to get anywhere near the idea. How Burke was the first to say it and she almost walked out. How _angry_ it still makes her to own it, but it's too hard. It's too much right now.

He softens. She feels him struggling against it. Hurt and his own anger hammering against the bedrock of fundamental kindness in him. He doesn't say anything. He's not there yet, but his fingers trail gently through her hair and over her skin.

"I'm not making excuses."

"Good," he says tightly, but he kisses her temple as if to temper it. "Not really ready for excuses."

"I don't have any, but I'm trying to explain . . ."

"I know." She feels his jaw working against her cheek. His teeth grinding. "I hadn't thought about what normal looks like for you. I've been . . . I've never really been alone like that. I've always had at least Alexis to consider. And money to throw at things."

"But it's not . . . my normal _isn_ _'_ _t_ normal. And I don't . . . _want . . ._ " She tries keep her own frustration out of it, but she's not good at this. She's not good at being the one to stand and fight. The one who has to draw him out. "When I told my dad about . . . everything. When you found the boarding pass and left . . ." She swallows it down. Shock and pain, even now. "He said I'd have to live with the fact that you'd hate me."

"I don't hate you. I don't hate DC. I don't even that you took the job." He says it and he means it, but he takes his hands off her all the same. They hover over her, agitated, like he's afraid of himself.

"But you're angry and you're hurt and I don't know how . . ."

"You stop doing it." He cuts her off. "Stop deciding for me what I hate or what's too much to ask. Stop acting like I'm your victim."

"I'm not . . . my _victim_?" She's staggered. Wounded by it and pissed off.

He plows right over her, though, like the word punches through whatever's been holding this in. "It's your _life,_ Kate. This job and DC and where you want to go with your career. It's not something you're doing to me unless you keep making it be that. Do you _want_ me to hate you? Is that what you think you deserve?"

"I'm trying to be _fair_." She's shouting now. They both are, and the sound is eerie and dead in the close space.

" _Fuck_ fair." He rolls away from her, his fists clenching around the air. "This isn't . . ." He breaks off. He heaves one breath out and another in and he's calmer. A little calmer. "It's not a bar tab. It's not . . . you give up this much because you've decided that I've given up that much. That's not how it works."

"So how does it work when you never say anything but 'Sure. Yes. Ok'?" She grinds the heels of her hands into her eyes. She welcomes the blackness and stars behind them. It suits her right now. "You never _say_ anything."

"Ok. You want me to say something?" He knots his hands together on his chest, that maddening calm of his creeping in.

Yes." She keeps herself still. She mirrors his pose. "And if you say 'something,' I'm going to hit you."

"Tempting." He tips a grin her way, but it doesn't do much to lighten things. He goes on. "I'm rich. And barring any real stupidity on my part, I always will be. I have work that I can do any time and anywhere and I can pretty much say _yes_ and _no_ to whatever I want when it comes to writing and everything that goes with it. I have a kid who—damn her—is doing absolutely great in college and life and everything. Even my mother is more or less stable. I'm not starting from the ground up again in a grueling job. I'm not in a new city, cut off from the handful of people in my life who I've let in enough to support me . . . "

He stops himself again. There's more he has to say there. A lot more, and she can practically taste it in the air, but he won't pile on. He stops himself like there's time for it later, and there is. She feels air rush into her lungs. A deeper breath. There's time.

"How do I _not_ say yes to everything when you won't ask for anything, Kate?"

The light flickers on and off outside. The windows are misty with words and breath and how hard this all is.

"I don't know how . . ." She shakes her head. That's not right. There's no excuse for it. "I don't know what to ask for."

"What do you want?" he asks softly. His hand creeps out to find hers.

"I want . . ." She slides her fingers through his and tries to get out of her own way for once. Out of their way. "I want this to be easier. I want . . . to not sit there wanting to hit something over a twenty-minute flight delay because that's twenty minutes less we get until I have to say goodbye again."

"Let me find us a place." His voice is calm. The words are easy and even, but he has a death grip on her hand. He turns his head, and she knows all his tells. The way his tongue flicks over his lips and his eyes dart from her to window to the roof and back again. He's terrified. "In DC. Let me find a non-shitty place that's ours."

Her free hand flies up to stop her mouth. Her heart is pouring and her stomach is tumbling over and over. Relief and guilt sloshing together in her and she presses her fingers hard against the words. It's too long a habit to change so easily. _I can't . . . you shouldn't . . . what about . . ._ she closes her teeth against all of it, but her body rises up.

She clambers on top of him. She slides her knees around his hips and kisses him everywhere until the only thing left is _Yes. Please. I love you._

His arms come around her, tight around her ribs to the point of pain. He kisses her back. All over until he realizes she's pushing against him. Out of air and needing to see his face. He takes her by the shoulders. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She nods. "I want a non-shitty place that's ours."

"Good." He kisses her. "Great. What else?"

"No," she laughs. "Nothing else. I'm not asking for anything else. You ask for something."

"I just did," he says smugly. "I said 'Let me' and you said 'yes'."

She scowls at him. He ducks away and lands another kiss on her shoulder. The corner of her jaw. Happiness he stamps on her. Contentment and relief.

She opens her mouth to call another truce. To say maybe it's ok that they're both done asking for things right now. She opens her mouth and something else entirely comes out.

"You have . . . a ring in your pocket?" She stares at him. He stares at her, and she wonders what the hell possessed her. It's the last thing she wants to ask about. It's the thing she'd like to ignore most. That's how it is on the surface. That's what fear and panic and dark tell her. But the words rise up anyway. From warmth and hope and delight underneath, and she won't take it back. "Right now?"

"Not at the moment. At the moment, I don't have pockets . . ." He grins, but he's nervous. Babbling a little. "And not _a_ ring. _The_ ring. Not a random ring or a different one. But wherever my pockets are . . ." He trails off. Makes himself look at her. "Yeah. All the time."

"All the time," she echoes. She feels her skin prickling all over. A wash of too many things. "What if you get mugged?"

He laughs hard enough that his ribs rise and fall. She's off balance, but he rights her with an arm around her waist. He pulls her head to his shoulder. "I'm careful. I take good care of it. And I have to be prepared."

"Prepared." She scowls against his chest. Annoyed that she only has breath and focus enough to parrot his words. "To ask?"

"To ask." He draws his hand possessively down her spine.

"I'd totally say yes." It pops out unbidden. She tries to scramble back. She tries to hide. Her face. Her head. The fact that she's blushing scarlet everywhere. He holds on, though.

"Good to know." He buries his hands in her hair and pulls her mouth up to his. "Really, _really_ good to know."

She breaks the kiss after a while. Her hair falls around them and she opens her eyes to find the world reduced to inches. To find him watching her again.

"You're not asking now, though, are you?" There's sadness in it. A little, but she wrestles it back.

"No," he says, sadness in it, too. Hurt that won't heal just like that, but hope, too. It _will_ heal. It can. "It's not the right time. It wasn't then, either."

"It wasn't." She lowers her head. Rests her cheek against his. "Are you . . . are you sorry?"

"That I asked?" He waits for her nod, even though he knows the answer. He knows what she was asking and he's buying time. "I'm . . . it came from . . . I'm sorry it came from a bad place. Then." His head moves from side to side. "But I'm not sorry that it's out there. I wish . . . I . . . we could have the first time back. But I'm not sorry for saying what I want."

She nods again, too filled with too much of everything to really respond, but her mouth continues to have a mind of its own. "Can I see it?"

"No."

She jerks half upright. "What do you mean, no?"

"I think you're tired, Beckett." He keeps a straight face. "No is pretty self explanatory."

"I want to see it." She glares down at him.

"Too bad." He shrugs, unperturbed.

She makes a strangled noise and pushes off him. She roots around in the mass of clothes strewn around the sleeping bag, but he hauls her in. He pins her wrists to the floor and rolls her on to her back. He braces his hips against hers.

"Why are you being such a brat?" She squirms against him. A half-hearted struggle that's more about the sudden energy she really needs to do something with than trying to get away.

"Practicing," he says it low in her ear and it sounds like an offer to help with that. "I hear I'm not supposed to say yes all the time."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, what I had of this part of the story from a year ago was about 2000 words. Not sure how it grew by 1900 in the mean time. Sorry for so extended an "epilogue" and thanks for reading.


End file.
